"I had cast my lot with a Soldier, and where he was was home to me." ~ Martha Summerhayes

October 2011

31 October 2011

All of our costumed festivities took place over the weekend. Things I learned:

None of our friends here have seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, which was quite disappointing. Nobody?? Maybe somebody we didn't run into at the party.

When you dress up like a movie star, you just end up feeling either too tall and fat (women) or too skinny (men). I mean, I do have like 6 inches and 40 pounds on Felicia Day, so it's not like I was hoping to really look like her. But even just googling pictures of her outfit so I could choose mine, then seeing pictures of other normal people dressed like her, Dr Horrible, and Captian Hammer...was almost enough to make me not want to do it. But not quite. Bam:

Oooh, you want to see pictures of my CHILD dressed up? Like, you know, like the point of Halloween? You'll have to wait. Still on the camera.

And some All Hallow's Eve tidbits:

Chocolate: The Bitter Truth - Unfortunately, I was all on top of things and had already purchased all of my Halloween candy by the time this story started making the rounds. I'll be interested to hear some good alternatives to child slavery chocolate.

So, if you can disasterfy things, can you holidify them? I feel like Halloween has exploded in the last few years. I like dressing up as much as the next person--OK, judging by all the next people, maybe I like dressing up a little less. Anyway, Mr Challies has an interesting hypothesis: Halloween and our search for community.

27 October 2011

Disclaimer: This is more just some havering and not really a book review.

I finally made it to my first session of a book group at my "night church" (we're two-timers, sorry) that I've sort of been stalking for the last few months. First they read The Next Story by Tim Challies, which said a lot of good stuff about technology in the lives of Christians but I just couldn't get through ("Because you kept checking facebook?" Nyuck nyuck nyuck, Mr Pastor). Then they read Saving Leonardo which I also got about halfway through, and which I was really enjoying but I felt like I needed to be sipping a hot chai latte at the Daily Grind in order to concentrate on. But then they read Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, and that is a book that I can get through. Wait, it was a little bit like pulling teeth. But I got through it, finishing approximately 3 hours before the meeting (I'd had a month to read it).

It's sort of a sick, depressing story, described by one book group guy as "Weird people having weird conversations and fornicating." There's also a blind but not-really-blind false preacher (actually there are like 4 false preachers), a stolen mummy, a cop who pushes a car off a cliff, and a very strange view of the hound of heaven following after the main character. But it's full of these fabulous one-liners:

There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin. [Zing! Legalism!]

"If you had been redeemed," Hazel Motes was shouting, you would care about redemption but you don't. ..." [Bam! Cultural Christianity!]

"It don't make any difference how many Christs you add to the name if you don't add none to the meaning, friend..." [Ouch! Church service content!]

"I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's, but behind all of them, there's only one truth and that is that there's no truth," he called. [Score one against relativism!]

OK, so as you can guess from that guy's description of the book, this isn't one for everybody. If you really enjoy complicated allegory and don't require everything you read to be up your exact doctrinal alley--there was some serious frowny-faced Calvinism going on at the discussion, as Flannery was a Southern Roman Catholic--you might want to check it out. All of the characters are distorted beyond belief, and I think it is so that they don't hit too close to home, so that then when they do say or do things that ring true with you you're like Ouch.

When it comes down to it, books like this are helpful to some and just plain unhelpful to others. I bet you already know what you are. (That sounds judgment but it's not!)

Finally, the author's much-quoted note to the second edition: "For [some] Hazel Motes' integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure [that would be Jesus] who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author Hazel's integrity lies in not being able to."

Why "Twilight" is a misogynistic piece of hardboiled crapola - OK, OK, this is old news, I know. But this sums up why I will never let my teenage girls watch this until I think they have a considerable amount of maturity under their belts. (I only watch the movies, I do not read the books, and I borrow the movies instead of sending any money their way...)

24 October 2011

Does regular ole pumpkin pie not have enough crust or butter for you? Yes? Read on...

A few years ago I was headed to my friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner. As I went to grab the pumpkin pie out of the tiny little Italian oven, my hands slipped and it dropped to the oven floor. You know how pumpkin pies are supposed to be all satiny-smooth on top? Yeah. The thing was destroyed. I cried a little. (We were late, too, of course.)

I am the opposite of a creative person, especially in the kitchen. If a recipe says to include 1/8 of a teaspoon of something, I will hunt up and down until I find my 1/8 teaspoon measure. Anyway, inspiration randomly struck. I spooned the remnants of the pie into a baking dish, mixing it up more, topped it with more graham cracker crust (from a box, not the pre-formed kind), drizzled some melted butter on top, and baked it for a little longer. And--I'm not going to be humble here--it was one of the best things I've ever tasted.

(And I'm eating some right now, that I made on purpose.)

Make the pie & bake it until it's almost done.

Spoon it all including the crust into a baking dish and stir.

Top it with graham cracker crumbs from a box (or, like me today, crushed-up graham crackers).

23 October 2011

There was already considerable Facebookery on this topic, so forgive the repetition. We have a Dietz print in our living room--see it here. Due to its depressing nature, neither of us were eager to put it in such a central area, but it just matched so well. Seriously. The GNG has started noticing it and usually says "Ice cream!" Because she thinks the 1/503 patch looks like it features frozen dairyliciousness.

(Except there is no turquoise background and it says "FIRST ROCK".)

(Because everything in infantry world is "first", "of excellence" and in ALL CAPS.)

You know, ice cream cone or death from above, same difference.

Wait, why does the eagle need a parachute? I'm confused.

So sorry, back to my story:

But this morning she was breakfasting with the Pater Familias and she noticed it again. And then she proved that she has her dad's affinity for geopolitics and the like.

21 October 2011

The Good News Girl has a bit of a gas station fixation. Every time we get in the car, she pipes up, "I wanna get gas?" At first I thought that there was something about the experience that she enjoyed, like me standing next to her car seat window and making hilariously, amazingly funny faces--if I may say so myself. But then I realized she wasn't satisfied. "Mommy, I wanna get gas!!" "Eva, we just did. Oh... You want to HAVE gas?" "Uh-huh." Affirmative. She thinks bodily functions are funny just like the rest of the family.

But anyway, we went to get gas after preschool yesterday. We've been having beautiful weather here lately, and it's been affectingly me strangely. I've been happy...like, nervous-energy, bipolarly happy. Can't trace it to anything but the weather, as I've actually cut down on coffee lately. It was making me nervous that I was going to do something absent-mindedly, as I was a little jumpy and nervous too.

There's a bunch of construction around the gas station and I ended up letting in a lady ahead of me. (Sidenote: It took her a few moments to realize that I was letting her in, and I'm ashamed to admit that I had the following thought: "I used to think that Italian women were bad drivers, then I moved to Asia..." Pride comes before the fall.) It just so happened that the person in front of her was done before she was, so I pulled around to the pump in front of her, put Eva's window down, grabbed my debit card, put on the hand brake, and got out. Unfortunately I left an essential action off of that list. By the time I figured out that my little blue zoom-zoom was in reverse and moving vigorously backwards it was too late, and as I ripped open the door and lunged for the gear shift, we crunched with an awful note of finality into the minivan beind us. (A standerby was running for the passenger door, also going for the gearshift--so grateful for people like that.)

Well, I managed not to cry. I didn't even realize until later how bad it could have been, say, if the lady had been standing in front of her car or if I had made it all the way to the back (as I almost did) before realizing that it was moving. She was a little freaked out so she called her husband to come from his work nearby and assess the damage. They were very kind and sent me off without even taking my phone number. The only damage was a bent license plate anyway.

Then I tucked my tail between my legs and drove home. By this time there was a huge line at the pumps so I didn't stick around to fill up. Many thanks to V for the tip about filling up when you've got half a tank left. It's good to have a little elbow room to retreat in humiliation and attempt to fill up your tank another day.

Interestingly, I was reflecting on the fact that I let the lady that I later hit into the gas station ahead of me. What if I hadn't let her in? I thought. I probably wouldn't have hit her. But no, I ended up driving around her to get to the pump in front of her, thus putting myself in the exact spot where I would have been if I hadn't let her in ahead of me. It was like it was inevitable. Kind of creepy. A butterfly flaps its wings, or Martha forgets to put her car in park...what happens down the road because of that?

I kicked Max off of the couch so I could sleep there (::gasp::) and so he went an tore apart a napkin then took a nap in Eva's very precious, very off-limits pink chair. And he's the least cranky one in the house today.

High Street Hymns is releasing a new advent/Christmas CD and could use some help--like, in the next 24 hours. You get stuff if you give! (Pledge $10 and get to download the album before it comes out; pledge $20 and you get a signed copy of the album and the pre-release download, and the deal keeps getting sweeter as you go up.) See video below. Their last Advent/Christmas album was fantastic--listen for free here. And for good measure, here's one of my favorites:

Chicken Parmesan Skillet Pot Pie - Somebody pinned this on Pinterest and somebody else put it on Facebook and I don't remember who any of those people were but this thing is amazing. If we'd had a 2-year Mexican marriage my husband would have definitely opted to extend it after he ate it.

Why John Piper links Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Sanctity of Life Sunday: "Paradoxically, by de-absolutizing the bonds of race and family, Jesus is able to create and purify bonds within and across those lines stronger than the most absolute human commitments."

19 October 2011

After reading the wide topical span of that title I actually thought about putting "Aren't you glad you don't live inside my brain?" But I have to live inside my brain. It's not funny, people. (Also, I could kill you with my brain.*)**

Notes From a Dragon Mom - When my book group read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, I think we all acknowledged that despite our shock at her parenting (even for those of us whose parents leaned toward the stricter side), we had something to learn from her high expectations for her kids. This article looks at almost the opposite scenario; it's written by a mom who has to focus on loving her kid the best she can every day, knowing that he will probably die by the time he's three years old. We have things to learn from her as well, I think.

*If you're concerned, don't worry, just another quote. I wish I could just sort of leave awesome references like that hanging, but I know that enough of my readers have no idea what I'm talking about that I need to pseudo-clarify.

**Waaait a minute, I already used that line on this blog. Oh well. I'm not cool enough to always be coming up with new relevant cultural references.

18 October 2011

Max was just nosing Nathan's scuba bootie, most likely looking for a nice spot for a nap or maybe to leave him a little present, and Eva shouted "No Max!! That's yuggy!" and threw the boot a few feet away.

When we go to the playground, it's frequently covered in spiderwebs. (That's just one of the wonderful things about Okinawa!) Eva thinks this is gross. "Yuggy bider!" she points, frozen in horror. "Mommy cu-resh bider?!" Yes, she requests that I cu-resh them. I don't know exactly where she got that (crush? crash?) but it indicates their imminent demise. Well, their webs', really. So whenever I go to take care of a bug, I think it in my head:Mommy cu-resh bider. She seems to relish the violence of the word.

Eva recently walked up to the pantry, "opy-ed" it, and pointed up at the graham crackers."Gu-reen cracker?"

She likes to jump onto her mattress (which is on the floor now, because I couldn't deal with the crib injuries anymore) while shouting "I THROW Eva!"

Eva contemplates them for a moment, then slowly turns her head up and peers at me from under her blonde side-bangs. "I taky off-a my socks an' wear it?"

One of her favorite snacks ever is these funny little Japanese pretzel sticks called Tomato Pretz. So she'll go "More pitz, Mommy?" and it takes me forever to figure out what she's talking about, every time.

Yesterday she was eating yogurt, and by "eating" I mean very carefully slathering it onto certain parts of her face. She excitedly told me, "I make-a me mess-a my face an' nose."

I've been encouraging her to speak politely and in longer phrases or sentences, i.e. instead of"MILK!!", "May I have some milk please, Mommy?" (which she is perfectly capable of approximating). Sometimes her thoughts come out in long sentences, unprompted: "I wanna watchy Daddy Dancy an' chocate milk an' I wan' my Kix too." (Daddy Dancy is one of the videos we keep on hand for when he's gone, of him dancing, of course.)

17 October 2011

The bold-letter edition. (Like red letter but red letters are for Jesus and Eva, though I love her, is really not much like Jesus at this point in time.)

I realize that I need a new name for this category of post, since any child that can say "I'm a baby!" is clearly not a baby anymore. But I suppose that, for now, she is the baby of this family. And I can't come up with anything that has the same fun ring to it.

This was written all the way back in June. Oops. Complete with older pictures.

As I've mentioned recently, the GNG has passed the Japanese Age of Supreme Kawaii and is on her way to big-girlhood. And, boy, does she know it! (For the record, I am now aware of the bizarre perception that haunts first-time moms--that your kid is SO big now. And then a month later you look back and realize how very young she was still...because NOW she's SO big. And so on.)

"I PASH!" (splash)

She is still very cuddly.Some time in the last month she realized that she was not saying "more" but rather "mah". So she sat there and sounded it out: "mooooorrrrrre". I'm hoping we're raising another little English snob. Her eagerness to talk is resulting in a lot of nonsense, stuttering, and abrupt subject changes, and of course I mean those in the cutest way possible. She'll be jabbering on about something and while I'm trying to figure out what it is her attention span will run out and she'll switch to something else: "Shhhooogrrrr! Shogr! Swimmy! Shogr! [In retrospect, I think she was just randomly thinking about fun things to do outside.] Ah-deeah flying!" [Olivia went "flying", aka on a plane.]She still says words backwards and/or turned inside out, for example "tup-cheh" for "ketchup". But now it's turned into "tupper". (Now, in October, it's "chuppech")"All done" is pretty clear but "all gone" (a difference she can now distinguish) is pronounced "ah-duck". Somewhere that is far to fall is a "beeg woah." The coveted going-back-downstairs-after-the-bath is asked for as "muh downnerr? muh downnerr?" The swing is a "whee". Bouncy things, like bounce houses, trampolines, and kangaroo stuffed animals, are "jumpajumps." I feel like I'm fluent in a foreign language that no one else, not even the PF, speaks.

Eating at Bubba Gump in Hong Kong. Because why not?

The other morning I was lying in bed when I heard a low "Owie toe...owie toe...owie night-night..." She used to scream when her ankle was stuck but I guess she's just so used to it now that she doesn't (you'd think she'd stop shoving her foot through the crib bars). So I rushed in there, did the usual ankle-twisting over the heart-wrenching sobs, and then suddenly she was free and all better. Which meant it was talking time. "Ah-duh Bunny!" (she handed me her book). "Ah-duh Buhdeeah!" (she handed me her other book, Amelia Bedelia). "Mokey!" (pointed to her monkey). "Buddy!" (pointed to her doll which she inexplicably named that). "Pinky!" (pointed to her pink miniature monkey). "Blankey!" (pointed to her blanket). "Ah-deeah bye-bye." (Olivia is gone.)

Later this morning we were eating waffles and she was very carefully dipping hers into syrup. She ran a little low on syrup and sent up the urgent call for "muh seeup? seeup? seeup?" I poured it into her little dipping cup and she just sat there staring at it, then her face scrunched up into her supersmile and she began to cackle: "Heh heh heh heh heh heeeeee." Her evil plan had worked. She often does this when I serve her something she really likes.

As I write this, she is dipping both forefingers into her leftover ketchup and sticking them in her mouth simulatneously.

A moment ago she came running, jowls a-jiggling, from the living room to the study, with her Boogie Wipes in hand. "Wap? Wap?" I gave her one. "I do fez." And she wiped her forehead with it. Then she trot-trot-trotted back to the living room.